If you don't like pat downs, you can do the screening. I would rather everyone be screened before I hop on a plane.
I'll be first in line for the screening. And I will skip the pat down thank you, though I will get a pat down tomorrow at the Seahawks game, Darn.

In Washington State, there is no smoking indoors. And in public arena's no smoking outdoors.
You can still smoke in the parking lot.
When I flew to Detroit, I couldn't find a place outside at the airport where someone wasn't lighting up. I had to keep moving and moving.
Ridicules.
I was skiing today at Snoqualie Pass, I didn't see any smoking there. Not a lot of snow, but what there was of it was good quality powder to ski on.

I have only flown once since 9/11. Not that I travel that much anyway, but I was somewhat freaked out. I was booked on an American Airlines flight on 9/11. Not THOSE flights, of course...flying from SD to Boston. That was of course cancelled, and I did not fly again until 2009, when a family wedding forced my hand! Took some train trips , which are a lot more fun than flying. ( lot more expensive, too!) Unfortunatley, I have to fly again on Dec. 15 ( another family wedding!). Not looking forward. I will take the scan, just to get it over with.

While we all value your contribution Cookie, and especially that of your father, the 400,000 Americans sacrificed in World War II is a drop in the ocean to the 50 million Europeans that lost their lives in that conflict. Which is why religion has not done so well there as it has here.

Lots of death in lots of families tends to dent church numbers.

Your check book was what counted most. And those debts have been repayed.

Yeah, my dad was one of the men who marched into one of the concentration camps with busted ear drums and what would be the word, helped those who was being held against their will. But, the rounding up I was referring to Ian, was that in America here. Did you not understand?

You may not believe this, but money is the one want of mine that is on the bottom of the list. I value other things greater.

I should add too, that my mom was quite unique, in WW2, at age 18, she was assembling aircraft.

I don't see what all the fuss is about but this is another example of why I still just don't get Americans, even after living here so long.

I know that you are all afraid of terrorism. I know you all want to be safe. I know you love rules.

But have to have a little airport pat down and you start shouting freedom this and freedom that.

So what's it gonna be? Safe with rules? Or dead but free?

I just don't get it.

And you know I don't get it.

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I favor "safe with rules" over "dead but free". I travel almost weekly for my job and I've not had any problems. Just last week I heard a lady call in to NPR and complain about a "friend of a friend" who was "all but molested" going through security. Please.

In this fast-paced world of instant gratification, people believe that any kind of inconvenience they've experienced legitimizes their ranting and bitching. It's almost shameful, imo.

Also I think that graph should be updated, I know Canada was considered part of the UK at that time but we contributed from day one and deserve to be recognized as a country.

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Over the course of the World War II war, 1.1 million Canadians served in the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Of these more than 45,000 lost their lives and another 54,000 were wounded.The financial cost was $21,786,077,519.12, between the 1939 and 1950 fiscal years. By the end of the War, Canada had the world's fourth largest air force, and third largest navy. As well, the Canadian Merchant Navy completed over 25,000 voyages across the Atlantic. Canadians also served in the militaries of various Allied countries.

By D-Day, June 6, 1944, the landings at Normandy were accomplished by two beachheads made by the American forces at Omaha and Utah, two by British forces, Sword and Gold, and a final one at Juno made by the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division penetrating farther into France than any other Allied force. After the Normandy landings, a Canadian spearhead drove northeast into the Netherlands, which Canada liberated not long after.

One of the reasons Canadians were so successful during the war, and have been since, is that they seem to have this ability to own guns without shooting one another. For some strange reason, they seem to be able to use guns just to hunt or shoot the enemy during combat and not turn on their neighbors.

Not so in America.

It's a miracle more troops aren't killed here from friendly fire, judging from the gun crime statistics. Perhaps this is why I see so many American troops walking in their camoflaged uniforms around Washington DC? It's probably the best way for them to avoid getting shot from a fellow citizen.

But the Constitution says it's allowed for people to own guns. So that's OK then?

Nope.

The result of this badly written piece of whatever is over 52,000 deliberate and 23,000 accidental non-fatal gunshot injuries in the United States every year. Add to that another 16,000 gun-related suicides and another 8,000 gun-related murders and you kind of get the picture that Americans are just not clever enough to own guns. Even the Founding Fathers couldn't cure stupid.

Deprived of a good, Government-funded education, it's American kids that don't seem to know what they are doing with daddy's gun. But perhaps daddy should have thought to to lock it away? He probably didn't learn that either because his parents couldn't afford to send him to a good school. They were too busy trying to pay for great grand pops' health care.